The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Sam knew this?”
“Yes. He and Evan were checking things out. We were trying to keep it quiet. As I’m sure you know, anything involving our family always seems to get into the press. Erin didn’t want that. Neither did Sam. We were afraid it would lead them directly to her. So Sam moved her in with him to provide protection and what we hoped would be a safe place to hide.”
Jim raised a brow. “That’s a little difficult to do when everyone in town’s seen the two of them together.”
“Sam was taking precautions,” Stoner said in Sam’s defense.
“You know who these people from the Virgin Islands might be?” Jim asked.
“Not the dealers, but she did have two friends who showed up, also trying to lay low. But I only know first names. Rick, he was the captain of the Sprite, the boat on which Erin worked. And Matty, one of the crew.”
Jim looked thoughtful. “Where did they sail out of? I can probably chase down names that way.”
“Saint Thomas, I think.” Stoner stared after the departing ambulance and swallowed. There’d been bad blood between him and Sam over the years, but any idiot could see Sam was head over heels in love with Erin. The connection that had always existed between Sam and his daughter had only grown stronger. Stoner was afraid what would happen to either one of them without the other. He knew probably better than anyone just how far back their attraction stretched. Twelve years ago, it had infuriated Stoner and shamed Sam, but now he couldn’t think of a man he’d rather see with her.
“I need to find Evan. Sam says he’s seen the two guys.”
Stoner nodded. “He’ll be at the hospital. Sam’s a close friend.”
* * * *
Erin hated the foggy, floating feeling that sent her mind spinning off in several different directions at once. She wanted to keep her eyes shut, but she was so dizzy. Hoping the spinning kaleidoscope behind her eyelids would go away, she carefully opened her lids.
Her face felt tight. When she tried to rub it, she realized two things. Her hands were bound behind her, and tape covered her mouth. Her eyes popped all the way open, and the light from the bedside lamp sent a jolt of agony to her visual cortex. As quietly as she could, she shifted, hoping to see where she was. It appeared to be a suite of some sort. Not many hotels had those. She listened carefully, and in the distance detected the low rumble of big trucks. The truck stop.
She closed her eyes again as the arguing from the other room filtered back to her.
“He’s supposed to come back today. I either have to be there or make it look like I’ve checked out and left him.”
“I need him…and you too. You can both help with the girl.”
“Looks to me like she’s pretty quiet right now. You didn’t overdose her, did you?”
Cruel male laughter rippled over Erin’s nerve endings.
“If I did, you’re the one who loaded the syringe.”
“According to your instructions.”
“Let it go. She’s fine. She’ll be out for a while. Let’s make sure the place you found is ready so we can move her.”
Erin tried to speak around the tape. She wanted to warn Matty not to trust Andre, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was garbled.
The door shut behind them. Erin strained her ears, but she could no longer hear anyone. Had they left her alone? Fat lot of good it did her, with tape over her mouth, her hands bound, and her ankles taped together. Maybe she could still get to the phone, dial 911 with her toes, something. Erin tried to shift her body on the bed, but it was much harder than she thought. Her legs felt heavy and unwilling to obey her commands. Finally, she managed to roll from side to side. Just when she thought she’d made it, she fell off the bed, cracking her head against the night stand.
Now she lay on the floor, feeling blood trickle down her forehead, and knowing she was stuck. With an exhausted, defeated sigh, Erin pressed her head to the floor. The tears she had held back for years trickled from the corners of her eyes. What happened hardly mattered anyway without Sam. His name spiraled through her brain over and over. Despair crept along her veins, as cold as trailing an ice cube down an arm.
Chapter 10
“Sam! Can you hear me? Come on, Sam. Open your eyes for just a moment so I can see you’re still there.”
“Donshoutjenny.”
Light feminine laughter floated over him, disturbing his peace as effectively as her voice had. “You are one lucky guy, you know that?”
“Erin?” His heart pounded as he waited for an answer. He couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes, fearing what he would read in Jenny’s expression.
“No. That’s not what I meant, though everyone’s out working on it from Jake’s guys to your deputies. Even Evan and the state guys.”
Sam opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He shouldn’t be lying here in a hospital bed. He should be going out to help find Erin. He tried to throw back the covers, then realized he had all sorts of tubes and wires stuck to him.
“Whoa, big boy!” Jenny gently pushed him back. “You can’t go anywhere right now. You’ve been in surgery for the past few hours. While you were lucky both bullets shot through and didn’t do any major damage, we still had to clean things and repair what we could. You’re down a leg and an arm right now, so you’re out of commission, Sam.”
He stared at Jenny. “Have to find her.”
His stomach knotted and his heart ached as much as his wounds. He’d sworn to protect her and failed. He’d taken precautions in town, but an attack in the dark on the farm hadn’t crossed his mind.
She touched his forehead. “I know you have to find her, Sam, but for once you’re going to have to rely on the men you’ve trained and the other men in her life. Evan has already given everyone an excellent description of Rick and Matty. He and Stoner are working closely with everyone involved. But you have to rest. In addition to the bullets, you took a nasty crack to the head. You’re damn lucky to be alive, Sam.”
With a reassuring touch to his shoulder, Jenny left him alone.
He didn’t feel lucky to be alive. He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out the thoughts that tortured him. Where was she? Was she even alive? And worst of all… How could he have been so incredibly naïve? He should have put additional protection on her and the farm. Should have done something other than carry his backup gun. He had allowed his ego and libido to get in the way of the basics of sound police work.
Several hours later, Sam was staring out the window when he heard the noise at the door. Evan and Jenny entered the room with Stoner and Catherine right behind them.
“A little crowded for ICU, isn’t it?” Sam’s voice was a hoarse rasp.
Jenny came forward. “I’m making an exception. Besides, I’ll bust you out of here tomorrow morning to a regular room.”
He scowled. “I’d rather go home.”
“That would be an option if it were only the arm wound, but for two bullets and a concussion, you have to serve extra time.”
Sam turned his head away from them. He appreciated Jenny’s effort, but he couldn’t forget what loomed over all of them. Erin was gone.
“Any luck?” he asked softly.
Evan stepped to the foot of the bed. “Not yet. Jim and a couple state guys have a room at the hotel next to the truck stop staked out. Your man Rick was registered there, but no one’s been there all day, so we’re keeping an eye on it.”
Sam ground his teeth together in frustration. He knew how these things played out. The longer a kidnap victim was gone, the smaller the chances were of survival. His brain thrust a picture at him of life without Erin. He closed his eyes against the desolation.
“I have to get out of here.” He started to move.
“Whoa!” Jenny’s voice cracked like a whip. “Sam, you’ll be of no use to her dead.”
His eyes swiveled to her. “And if I don’t go, she could end up dead.
”
Catherine gasped. Sam’s gaze darted to her. He turned his face away in shame. He wasn’t the only one in pain in this room. “I’m sorry,” he choked.
He felt lost, empty. Just at the point where he’d finally realized the difference in their ages didn’t matter, that she didn’t care that his farm wasn’t Richardson Homestead, she was gone. He had planned to ask her to marry him. They should have been curled up on the couch. He would have given her his grandmother’s ring. It had sat in the box on his dresser where he kept his most personal possessions for years. He’d never questioned why. Now he realized he’d been waiting for her to grow up, to come back. He could almost see her eyes light up. His vision blurred, and Sam blinked the moisture away.
At the touch on his arm, he found Catherine standing next to the bed. She leaned over and hugged him gently.
“It’s all right, Sam. I share your feelings. As soon as we can persuade Jenny to let you out of here, I want you to come to our house.”
“Why?” Sam couldn’t help asking and blinked in embarrassment. The animosity between Stoner and him had been so longstanding, it was still difficult for Sam to adjust to the change that had made him almost a part of the family rather than the older man trying to take Stoner’s daughter.
“I…my farm,” he protested, trying to dig his way out.
“All taken care of,” Stoner finished as he entered the room. “Carter and my hands will get your herd and your horses tended. I also talked to your hired man. He’s about cleared with his doctor. The neighbor kid said he can help out extra too.”
Sam looked at Stoner.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Just get better so you can find my daughter, Sam,” Stoner rumbled. “She needs you a whole lot more than she needs the rest of us.”
Sam swallowed. It eased some of the guilt he’d been feeling. That Stoner would even make that kind of statement was an admission of just how far his relationship with Erin had progressed.
Sam didn’t want to admit it, but he was tiring. Everything on him ached abominably. He knew he needed to rest, but he was afraid that would never happen. Images of Erin tormented him every time he started to relax. The thought she might be injured or frightened tore at him. As tough as she was, she was still no match for a gun. And the idea of someone shooting her made his nerves crawl with impatience to be up and out of bed. He had promised to protect her, but he hadn’t.
Evan was going through what they had discovered about her two friends to update him, but Sam was having a hard time concentrating.
She was so feisty, but she was also tiny. Someone with any size could hurt or break her so easily, and she was too assertive not to fight back. Then there were her emotional reserves. Sam wasn’t sure how deep those ran yet. He recalled the brittle young woman who’d shown up at the country club last fall. She had been more than halfway to having a serious addiction problem, but she’d overcome that. Sure she’d changed a lot, but it wasn’t that long ago that she’d stood in that guesthouse too scared to go into dinner with her own family. Just how much pain or temptation could she stand?
“Sam? Did you hear me?”
He looked back to Evan and passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry… Lord, Ev, I can’t get her out of my mind.”
“Do you know if she’d heard anything more from the guys from her ship…Captain Rick and Matty?”
“No, she hasn’t heard from them.”
“Are you sure?”
Sam glared at Evan. “I’m positive.”
Evan’s phone vibrated and he pulled it from his pocket. When Jenny frowned at him, he shrugged.
“Yeah. This is Evan.”
He listened for several minutes, then jammed it back into his pocket.
“Jim caught up with Rick Nelson at the hotel where he and Matty have been staying. Jim’s just finished questioning Rick. They’re checking his story right now. He claims he’d gone to the coast to talk to a charter captain there about buying a boat, and he just got back into town tonight. Said Matty was supposedly checking out some late season skiing in West Virginia, but should have been back today. There’s no sign of him at their hotel room, and his belongings are gone.”
“Matty’s who I saw.” Sam’s voice was grim.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. I didn’t see anybody else before I blacked out, but I heard another voice. Someone else was with him.”
“You think it was Rick?”
“No. The voice was different. Colder. Didn’t have that smoky quality Rick’s voice has.”
“You think it was the drug dealer?”
Sam sighed. “I can’t come up with anyone else, Evan. Erin was scared of the guy. Damn… What was the name? Delancey…Delacourt. Delacroix. That’s it. Delacroix!” Sam tried to sit up. Now that he’d remembered the guy’s name, there were so many things they needed to follow up on.
“Whoa there,” Jenny barked, moving in to ease him back against the bed. “Sam, you’ve got to get some rest. Evan can make sure everyone follows up on the guy. If you continue to show improvement, I’ll move you out of ICU in the morning, but tonight, I want you to get some sleep.”
How the hell was he supposed to do that? His mind was in turmoil and he couldn’t calm himself.
“You want me to give you something?” Jenny arched a slender blond brow, as if she sensed where his thoughts had gone.
“No.” The last thing he wanted was to be drugged up if something developed. “I’ll settle down. That’s all I can promise.”
After she ushered everyone out, Sam closed his eyes. He had seen the fear and concern on all their faces and knew it was echoed in his own. His uninjured hand clenched the covers. Oh Erin, baby, I’ll find you. Just hang on! Sam glared at the tubes and wires attached to him. They were as effective as handcuffs. If he even attempted to remove one of them, it would set off alarms and bring nurses running.
He would wait until they moved him. He could wait for that, and then he was outta there. He didn’t care if he had to walk out in a hospital gown with his ass hanging out in the breeze. He was going to find Erin and bring her home. No matter what had happened, he would bring her home where she could be safe with him.
He swallowed thickly. He wouldn’t fail a second time.
* * * *
“I see you’ve decided to come around.”
Erin opened her eyes. Andre sat on a chair nearby. She was in a heap on the floor, but not the same floor as before, and the tape was gone.
“Go to hell.” Erin glared at her captor.
He grabbed her hair and pulled her into a sitting position. “You’re in a bad spot to take that kind of tone. It’s a shame. Guess I could put the tape back over that mouth, but I can think of so many better uses for it. Besides, we’ve moved accommodations, so even you screaming won’t help you now. My resourceful companion found this for me.” Andre paused to cast an arm around the room. “Not my taste, but then trailer trash has never been my thing. Still, this will do until I can get everything settled. Then we will discuss your future.”
He paused and smiled at her, his pale eyes cold despite what she was sure was meant to be a pleasant expression.
“You should thank me, you know. Originally I intended to simply kill you and rid myself of the inconvenience of having someone who had heard too much about my family’s business. However, the little show you and your lover put on last night has convinced me you have some other, more useful purposes. That was a magnificent blowjob you gave him. I look forward to getting one.”
Andre smiled again, and Erin’s stomach rolled. He had seen her with Sam. Just the thought he had watched her and Sam make love was bad enough, but that he imagined she would ever touch him in the same way was insane.
“Ah… I see you think you would never do that, but you will darling, because you’re about to develop a serious drug habit, and with me as your only supplier, you’re going to find you
’ll do anything for a fix, including sucking my cock or anything else I dream up. And I can promise you I’m endlessly inventive.”
“You’re crazy,” Erin spat at him. He was even sicker than all the rumors she had heard, and there had been plenty of talk in some of the dives Rick and his crew frequented. Erin had heard tales of Andre’s penchant for roughing up women, not to mention the fact she was fairly certain Andre had been branching out recently. “Besides, what do you need me for? You’ve got Matty. Did you let him suck you last night?”
The crazy light in Andre’s eyes hardened into something even uglier. He slapped her hard enough to snap her head sideways. “You will have to learn to keep your mouth shut. It’s you who may go back to St. Thomas with me, bitch, not him. But only if you learn to keep quiet and do what you’re told. Otherwise, there are plenty of dense woods behind this place where no one will find your body for a long, long time.”
Erin ducked her head. The sheer force of his reaction told her a lot. She had suspected something more had gone on aboard the Sprite than just Andre riding as a passenger. She had heard them on deck late one night after she had gone to bed, heard the moans of passion, and guessed what was going on. Rick and the rest of the crew had always thought it fun to seduce men, especially the ones who so vehemently insisted they were straight. Matty, in particular, always laughed afterward that the ones who protested the most also moaned the loudest.
If Matty wasn’t going back to the island with him, what was he going to do? More importantly, what did Rick know about all of this? Erin felt as if her heart were breaking. Rick had been her best friend, almost like a father, though she never would have said that to him. To imagine he knew was enough to crush her spirit. But how could she think otherwise? Matty obviously did, and she couldn’t imagine him doing anything without Rick telling him. When tears clouded her vision at the idea of such a betrayal, she shook her head to clear them. She would not let them see her cry. Not ever again.
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